Last November, I had a short story called THE CELL published in OVERHEARD, an anthology of fiction intended to be read aloud. The anthology is edited by Jonathan Taylor and was published by Salt. It is available on
Amazon UK and direct from
Salt Publishing, and can also be ordered from bookshops.
It's a brilliant collection of stories, and I can thoroughly recommend it to everyone who likes short fiction. Other contributors include: Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison, Louis De
Bernières, Adele Parks, Kate Pullinger, Adam Roberts, Michelene Wandor,
Vanessa Gebbie, Judith Allnatt, Jo Baker, David Belbin, Panos Karnezis, Gemma Seltzer, Ailsa Cox and Will Buckingham.
I enjoyed writing this short story so much - which is about the interior life of a female Egyptian hermit of the third century - that I'm considering expanding it into a novel.
Considering. These things are never certain ...
Here's a short extract from THE CELL, where my female hermit, after 17 years living alone in the desert, dwells on the rare visits from her spiritual father, Macarius, who is the hermits' new Abba after the old one died.
I am never sure if these visits help or
hinder my progress. I am glad of them, for sure; my soul leaps for joy at the
sound of a human voice, and my foolish vanity enjoys Abba Macarius’ flattering
attentions, however fleeting. But afterwards, in the long stillnesses of the
night, I recall each word spoken and regret them all. My pride asserts itself
after these visits. It presses vicious thorns deep into my flesh, making me
imagine, dream, recast each meeting until it shows me to best advantage, the
least worldly of our order, the most pious, the Abba’s favourite. Mostly
though, peace falls from my mind and I begin to remember how it feels to be
alive in the world. My desire increases and pains me. The struggle to cage it
becomes harder, almost impossible to bear. Some days the lure of the
shimmering, heat-haze horizon burns my eyes like the desert burns my feet
through my sandals. It can take weeks for equilibrium to return, for will to
exert itself over my dizzying desire. Yet even will can corrupt the unwary. For
it is the individual will, not the will of God, to which the body bows.
By speaking I weaken myself. Silence is the
narrow way.
The days stretch out in this manner, my
conscience knocked this way and that. Following a visit, I keep the cell door
closed during the cooler hours when walking outside would be possible, afraid
of my own weakness. Gradually, the stirred air of my cell settles. The humble
stone walls and floor are my own again. Soon I find myself able to pray without
distraction, and begin to follow the prayer cycles and meditations Abba
Macarius has recommended for such trials. I sit cross-legged for days on end,
examining one solitary word of the Lord’s teaching until it becomes as vast and
complex in my understanding as creation itself. At such miraculous times, I
feel His presence so near to me, it seems incredible that almost three hundred
years have passed since He gave His life for mankind.
Read more of this story in
OVERHEARD.
